whatever a moon has always meant
by Zylona
Summary: He wants to say of course, of course he still thinks about her when he was just a boy and she was the girl he wanted give the moon. - Jacob/Bella, post-Breaking Dawn


_and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant  
>and whatever a sun will always sing is you<br>_~ ee cummings

She doesn't know which makes her a worse person: the fact that she watches him, watches the way he holds Renesmee close to his chest and she snuffles her nose against his heartbeat – something she'll never feel from her parents – or the fact that she sits by him as he sleeps, watching the rise and fall of his chest with the breaths she misses, wanting to trace one cold fingertip along the fevered heat of his collarbone.

Sometimes, every now and again, when she is left alone for a few hours strung together, she thinks about the times when she thought this was all she could ever want. When she believed that having Edward in bed with her, his icy hands on her skin and his still chest against hers was everything. She finds, oddly, impossibly, that it's not the same when she is as cool and rigid as he is, when there's no contrast between the chill of his palm and the skin stretching over her ribs.

It doesn't happen often, but Jacob will still hug her; when he's excited, when something good happens, milestones and birthdays, when Nessie does something special. And for those few moments when he picks her up off the ground, the heat of him, the pounding of his heart, the rush of warm, damp breath against her neck – she feels something in her twist and coil.

She is jealous of her own daughter, envious of something she rejected time and time again, and loathes herself so deeply sometimes she would wish for her heart to stop beating, if it were not already frozen in her chest.

He doesn't know how to describe it. It's as if – it's like the indention in a pillow after someone first wakes up, a shadow of an absence. The feeling is gone, but the impression remains, a faint suggestion of something that once was. It never stops being strange, being at odds with perfect happiness.

Every time he sees Nessie, it's like his whole world makes sense. Everything comes to a sharp point, and she is all-encompassing, she is why he lives. But he remembers, cerebrally, in the way he knows that B comes after A, that the grass is green, and how pine smells, that he once loved Bella.

He knows it, but he can't, won't, shouldn't feel it.

When he's alone, when Nessie is far enough away, but not too far, when it's quiet enough, but not too quiet, when the planets align, he can remember the places in his life where that love is missing. He can't resent Nessie, he almost wishes he could. He _can't _resent the imprinting, and in a way, he resents himself for ever brushing across the thought that such things would be possible.

She watches him sleep, she wonders idly if it's something that comes as a side effect of the venom that now courses in her veins, settles in her muscles and marrow. It causes her lips to curl into a tiny smile, the memories of when she was younger, so much younger.

Jacob's chest rises and falls, his abdominal muscles expanding and contracting in a rhythm she never thought to find fascinating before. She wants to rest her fingertip along the line of his six-pack, traces the edges as they tighten. She allows her eyes to follow a trail to his chest, the sharp line of his collarbone, the tanned skin tight over his shoulders.

He radiates heat, he always has, always will now, the wolf awakened forever. But if she thought he was warm when she was a living, breathing human, the waves that roll off of him now are almost overpowering. She thinks, strangely, that maybe it will thaw her, that if he held long enough, tight enough, if she curled around him and let him, he could reawaken her heart, set the blood thrumming through her veins again.

That maybe he could chase away the cold.

It's always the same nightmare. His bones are crushed, like they were after the fight against the newborns. He's in pain and immobile, and Bella is in the distance, turned away from him, but he can smell her. He can remember the way she used to smell to him, to his heightened senses, the lavender of her body wash, the smell of water, of sunshine, of the desert baked into her skin from her years in Phoenix. It's ridiculous, sunshine doesn't smell, but she smells like warmth. Like she – like she _belongs_.

He calls to her, but she's not listening, her hand extended, and she looks so small, so far away, but somehow just out of reach. And then _he's_there. A shadow smelling of rotten, of death, of destruction, of ice, smelling so strongly of decay that Jacob can feel the bile rise in his throat. He kicks his legs, trying to move forward, trying to stop the inevitable.

But all he can do is watch as Cullen grabs her by the waist, her sigh like the roar of a engine to Jacob's ears, and then her pained gasp as Cullen sinks his teeth into her neck.

He tosses, his legs kicking at the bedding, and then he whines high in his throat, sounding and looking like a puppy having a nightmare. The rush of affection is almost overwhelming, coating her from the inside out, something like an illusion of warmth. She shouldn't, but she reaches for him in a moment of weakness, wanting to comfort him like she once could. The second her cold hand settles on his chest though, he jerks awake. His eyes fly open, chest rising and falling rapidly.

"Bella," he chokes out, his voice caught in his throat, in the rush of air to his lungs. His hand rises, wraps around the stone of her upper arm, before he pulls back like she's burned him. She wants to laugh at the irony, but instead she just stands, frozen.

"Sorry," she whispers, and he flinches. There's something like pain curling in her chest at that, at the memory of a time when he would've turned into her touch, when she would've let him melt against her side.

"It's –" he takes a deep breath, shifts his shoulders, the muscles rippling, "it's fine. It's okay."

But it's not, and it hasn't been for five years, six years, ever, maybe.

"Nightmare?" she questions softly, looking away from him, at her hands.

She still feels graceless around Jacob.

"Yeah," he says, feeling for all the world like he should put on a shirt, like he shouldn't be this exposed to her anymore. "It's not a big deal, just the same old one."

There's a pause, and he thinks maybe this is where she would gasp, if she needed to.

"The same -" she stops again, and when he looks up, for a moment her perfect statuesque face looks so much like _his_- not his, never his - Bella. "I thought -"

He wants to bark laughter at that, but it sticks in his throat, dry and burning, like the smoke of a bonfire. "You thought everything was perfect." She flinches at his tone; he feels his ribs crack and splinter like firewood.

"I didn't -" but she stops herself, and looks him directly in the eye, a flicker of fear in her gaze. "Can you tell me? It might be -"

"_Dammit_, Bella." He feels the shudder that ripples down his spine, the creak in his joints that always comes with strong emotion, with the call to change. The ever-present reminders of what he is. "Not everything is some prophecy."

Her face goes still at that, that unnatural sort of paralyzed state. "If you have the same dream a lot -" her voice is so cold it's like her hand on his skin, "it could _mean_ something."

"It doesn't," he says firmly, he wants her to leave, wants her to drop it. "Trust me. It doesn't mean anything."

"Maybe if you just tell me -"

"It's about you!" Even he flinches at how loud his voice sounds in the quiet night. He takes a deep breath, trying to force the calming air into his lungs, the stillness.

_Me. _

She stares at him, the flush of his chest.

"But -" her mind is turning in circles, like a puppy chasing his own tail, unable to latch on. "You dream about _me_?"

He doesn't answer, but his eyes fall away, the truth written in the drawn shape of his mouth.

Suddenly, she misses the increase of her heartbeat in moments like these. The flush of anticipation, of fear, of _want_.

"What -" she takes a deep breath, unnatural as it may not be, wanting to hold to some shred of her humanity in this moment with him, his breath and heat making the room seem to close in around her. "What happens?"

"Bella," he says, and it's like a moan, almost pained.

The old Bella, the Bella that had blood and life running in her veins would've let him off the hook, would have let it go.

"What happens to me?" she asks more firmly, and when he looks at her, his face is twisted and pleading. But she's stone now, hard and solid, unwavering.

"It's not -" she cuts him off though, a firm _Jake_. She doesn't dwell on the fact that she hasn't called him that in years. "It's the same as it always was. I can't get to you, I can't save you from him."

Her eyebrows draw together. "From -"

"Edward." Jacob says before she even finishes the sentence. "I can't save you from becoming -" he stops to look her directly in the eye, his arm gesturing, "I can't save you from this."

She'd forgotten what this pain felt like.

He'd honestly thought he'd never see that expression on her smooth face again, like he tore the rug out from under her.

"It doesn't matter," he tells her, he means it. It's nothing. It's a leftover shadow of another life, one that will never be, could never be. The mind plays tricks. "It doesn't mean anything."

"You still dream about saving -" and her voice cuts off, like she can't even string the words together, can't admit that it would be a rescuing. "You still dream about me before?"

He'd stopped being able to read her when everything changed, and he thinks, maybe, he never really could. He can't read her now, the softened melodic sound of her voice, where his Bella's was always a little awkward, stilted, displaying her emotions no matter how hard she tried to hide them.

He wants to say of course, of course he still thinks about her when he was just a boy and she was the girl he wanted to give the moon.

But all he can seem to manage is a nod of his head, his throat tightened to where he's scared of what his voice will sound like.

"Jake," she says, just barely above a whisper. "But," and he can see her struggle, grasping on to the words, "Nessie, and -"

He hasn't seen her look so unsure, so lost, in - in years. He steps toward her. To his surprise, she doesn't step away from him, just looks at him, a million questions written by the tip of her eyebrows, the set of her mouth, the tilt of her head.

He brushes the hair away from her face, manages not to shudder when the tip of his fingers graze across the chill of her cheek.

His hand is so hot against her, the calluses of his fingertips so achingly familiar, like being thrown back in time.

"Bella," he says, his voice thick and slow in his throat. His thumb glides along her cheek once more. "I love Nessie, I love her in my heart and my gut. I love her to my bones. But if I had a choice -" He breaks off, his fingers just tangling in the ends of her hair. He seems lost, and her hand finds his without thought, without decision. She watches the shudder ripple across him, through her. She feels dizzy, unbalanced.

All she wants is for him to say it, to say the words, and she feels sick for it, for the betrayal, for whom she has always been, will always be.

"Jake," she murmurs again, stepping in closer until she can barely stand the heat rolling off of him.

"If I had a choice," he says again, his voice hoarse. He looks at her. "I would choose you. I would always choose _you,_Bella."

There is nothing for her to say to that, no words for the way it feels like a spark in her stomach, in her chest, a shock to her still heart. She moves with the speed and agility that has seeped into every cell of her body, thankful to the ends of the earth that she's now just as strong, just as fast as he is. Her arms are around his neck, her hard, cold lips pressing against his hot, pliant ones in a split second.

For a moment, a terrifying hung moment, she worries he won't respond, that he will stand there and reject her as gently as he can. A courtesy she certainly never gave him.

But then his arms are around her, dragging her against him, and he's just as solid, just as warm, just as enveloping as he was the last time she kissed him six years ago.

Instinctively, he knows he should pull back, the taste of her foreign and callous on his tongue. But it's Bella, it's Bella, and beneath the smell of blood and poison, she still smells like she should, faint and fading every year, but it's still there, and he's still holding on somewhere inside.

Her tongue touches against his first, darting tentatively against him, and she so embodies the girl she used to be in that moment that it almost ruins him.

Instead he holds her tighter, slipping his hands beneath the cotton of her shirt, pressing his hands against the frigid skin of her lower back. She pulls him in tighter, one of her hands drifting down so that her thumb brushes against his nipple, the coldness jerking a growl out of him.

She pulls back, one hand still cupping his neck, the other resting just over his rapidly beating heart. Her eyes fall to watch, almost like she can see the pulse of it through his skin. She closes her eyes slowly, and when she opens them and looks back up at him, it's all over her face, if he really means this, if this is really going to happen.

He reaches for the bottom of her shirt, sliding his hands from her back to her hard stomach, pushing up the cotton so that he can see the smooth expanse, the indention of her navel, the freckles that not even the poison in her veins could erase. She lifts her arms, letting his slide it up and over her head. Wordlessly, she looks down and undoes the fly of his pants.

Her hands don't even shake a little.

When he kisses her this time, it's slow, languid; he savours it, the slide of her tongue cool against his own, the shape of her teeth, the curve of her palate. Everything slows, the slide of her against him, the way her skin warms, taking on his heat beneath his touches, like she's becoming herself again, like he can set her heart back into a rhythm.

_This is how we die,_ she thinks, _consumed by flames._

He's so alive beneath her fingers, the grunts and moans that sound from his throat, his chest, his gut. The way his muscles move over her, the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the drop that courses down the cords of his shoulders.

He tastes of salt and life, of warmth, sunshine, blood. The poison in her wants to bite him, to taste the penny sharp heat of his blood on her tongue, down her throat, until he floods her veins, until he's truly inside of her.

He goes so slowly, so gently, like he's trying to memorize every noise, every slip of skin on skin, every curve and dip, every plane of her body. It's nothing like what she experiences with Edward, even when she was still human, it was hard and fast, bruising and frenetic. This is different, this is a Saturday morning, a hammock swinging in the breeze. She just wants to hold on to him, she won't rush him, because she won't let go. She doesn't know how she will.

Everything within her is lighting up, burning, flickering like a candle, like she'll melt down to nothing but wax eventually. And then he slips a hand between them, presses his fingers against her, circling and teasing, faster and faster until she can feel it within her, curling up and expanding. It's not the explosion she's used to, it's not a supernova, it's like a wave rolling over the shore at high tide. It sweeps through her body, long and unfurling, and for the first time in six years, she feels warm from her head to her toes.

Edward is still gone when she gets back, of course he is, he'll be gone for hours more, until closer to daybreak. Jacob was still asleep when she left him, slipping out of his arms with all the stealth she's capable of. It would be no harder, no easier to have stayed longer. It's the same ache no matter.

She slips into their home, their beautiful giant home, and for the first time it feels – sterile. It feels sterile. She climbs the stairs, and despite her supernatural strength, speed, it seems to take forever for her to get to the landing. When she peeks in Nessie's room, she's curled on her side, her hair spread across the soft lilac of her pillowcase, and in this moment she would cry, if she could.

The pain crackles along every inch of her, the guilt. She pushes away from Nessie's doorway, and when she steps into the bedroom she shares with Edward, her husband, a formality. There's only a bed so that they can have a comfortable surface for – for having sex. The bathroom adjoins, marble that would be cold were it not her natural state, stainless steel. The shower is in the corner, frosted glass blocking it from the rest of the room.

She should shower, she should scrub until there's not a trace left of his smell. Edward, his family, always described it as wet dog, but she smells beneath that the lingering cedar and woodsmoke. She doesn't know that she has the heart to wash it away yet, doesn't know if she wants to let go of him just yet.

"Mama?"

Bella turns to find Nessie standing in the doorway to the bathroom, hair curling against her waist. She's almost as tall as Bella now, her face already thinning into that of a woman, not a little girl. It occurs to Bella sometimes, how much she resents the fact that she never got to enjoy her child growing, not really. She never got to experience the toddling before first steps, potty-training, she had all of the joys undampened by the struggles. She's never been able to stop feeling like she was cheated.

"Go back to bed, sweetie," Bella says gently, but Nessie just cocks her head to the side, walking closer. Her head tilts up, her delicate nostrils flaring.

"You –" her eyebrows wrinkle. "You smell like Jake."

"I went to see him," Bella says quietly, trying to coax her mouth into a smile.

"Oh." Nessie's face doesn't relax though, like she's still trying to sort through a puzzle in her mind, a piece that won't seem to fit anywhere. Bella knows she'll find out, one way or another, she'll find out, but for now she pulls her daughter into a hug, and when Nessie's fingers brush against her neck, all she can hear, feel is _love love love_.

For that instance, she's glad she's carved from marble.


End file.
